Christmas Eve finds Roxanne curled up on her sofa, watching Rudolph and thinking about nothing in particular, when there's a knock on her balcony glass. She glances over, thinking maybe Wayne has come to visit, but—

Her eyebrows fly up and she scrambles to her feet to hurry and unlock the door, pulls it open with a gust of cold air that smells like snow. "Megamind?"

He sends her a very thin, bitter-looking smile. "Ho ho ho."

She huffs a laugh, bewildered, and steps back to wave him inside. "Get in here before you freeze. What's going on? You okay?"

"I'm fine," he says as he steps inside, but it comes a little too quickly. Roxanne sends him a Look, and he sighs. "However, I am…having an…exceptionally difficult evening. Minion insisted I come kidnap you about it."

She blinks, shocked and not bothering to hide it at all. "I'd prefer not to be kidnapped at nine PM on Christmas eve in my slipper socks. Can I help with your difficult evening from here? I have hot chocolate and holiday movies."

He glances down at her feet and Roxanne wiggles her toes in demonstration. His lips twitch into a sort of reluctant smile.

"I suppose I can accommodate that," he says, "just this once."

Roxanne grins, relieved. "Great. Take your spikes off and have a seat. I'm about halfway through Rudolph, but you can pick something else, if you want. I'll go put the chocolate on."

"You don't actually need to do that," he begins, sounding startled, but she just waves at him over her shoulder.

"I was already thinking about doing it," she says. "I might as well. Any food allergies? No? Oh, we can start the movie over if you've never seen it," she adds, thinking he might not have, but he actually snorts.

"I have seen most of the classics," he says, scornful. A couple of quiet thumps tell her he's also taken off his shoes, and then the sound of the movie kicks on. "I grew up in a prison, not under a rock. But no, thank you, anything but Rudolph. Die Hard?"

Roxanne laughs. "I suppose that counts," she says, amused. "Sure, we can watch that one."

Anything but Rudolph. Fair enough; the whole social outcast theme might hit a little too close to home for a supervillain who lives mostly as a hermit when he isn't in prison or engaging in evil. Roxanne huffs a quiet laugh to herself as she starts the milk heating up, sort of half-watching over her shoulder.

And—a difficult evening? Minion insisted? That's new.

But maybe he realized after the last time he kidnapped her, the time Roxanne offered to do basically anything except the evil plot—maybe he realized that she meant it? That she would be okay just hanging out from time to time?

Hopefully. Because as weird as she knows it is to have him here, it also feels surprisingly normal.

"You have to leave before my parents get here tomorrow morning," she tells him. "They're coming around eight."

He gives her a thumbs-up over the back of the sofa but doesn't turn around.

They watch the movie mostly without interruption after Roxanne comes back to the sofa, with the exceptions being Roxanne getting back up again at one point to make popcorn and later humming a quiet affirmative when Megamind mumbles into his mug, "Wish they all felt such compyunction," after Sgt. Powell's I shot a kid line.

Later, as the credits start to roll, Roxanne glances over at him. He's curled up on the other end of the sofa, leaning against the armrest there with his feet tucked under him and a throw pillow pinned between his chest and his knees, both hands wrapped around his empty mug, glaring at nothing.

"So…difficult evening?"

He doesn't look at her. "I would prefer not to talk about this with you, Miss Ritchi."

She nods. She wasn't really expecting him to open up; even just coming here must have been a blow to his pride. "That's okay. More hot chocolate?"

He does glance over at that, his bleak expression clearing somewhat. "Oh—yes. Please," he adds, belatedly, and Roxanne comes over and takes his mug.

He doesn't say anything while she makes the second batch of chocolate. He just sits. And stares, hugging her throw pillow and fiddling absently with one of the seams. Watching from her kitchen, Roxanne thinks of approximately a million ways to try and get him out of his head, but...given how her last conversation with him went, she really does not want to offer comfort without knowing what's wrong. Also, she doesn't want to rock this boat! Megamind is in her home. Casually. Watching movies with her. Yes, it's because he's having a bad night, but he came to Roxanne about it and he didn't even kidnap her. This feels significant! This feels like progress!

This also feels like she isn't going to hack up petals for a while, which, thank god.

Is Christmas always bad for you, she wants to ask, but Megamind has already said he doesn't want to talk about it.

When the chocolate is finished, Roxanne refills both mugs and then takes a quick detour past her Christmas tree before going back over to the couch. She puts Megamind's chocolate on the coffee table, and instead hands him an oblong package with a pattern of dancing Santa Clauses on the wrapping paper. Megamind takes it from her on what looks like autopilot and then recoils in surprise, frowning uncertainly down at it.

"What—what is—?"

"It's for you," Roxanne says, reclaiming her position in the corner of the red sectional. "Merry Christmas." He turns his head and squints at her, looking so completely baffled that she has to laugh. "Okay, so—technically, that was going to be for my mom. But your feet looked cold."

He sends her another bewildered expression but opens the package—

—and his tired face finally lights up the way it's supposed to at the fuzzy shape that tumbles into his lap. "Oh! Ha." He tugs the slipper socks onto his bony feet and cocks an eyebrow at her. "There. Nice and cozy? Thank you?"

Roxanne laughs. "Yeah. Sorry, I just…you looked like you needed those. Anyway."

He sends her a glare, but he's hiding a laugh, she can tell. "I do not need socks," he grouses. Roxanne rolls her eyes at him, and he sighs, a smile tugging its way onto his thin features. He still looks tired, but he appears to have relaxed at last. "But…they are appreciated."

She grins back. "Don't mention it. What should we watch next?"

He eyes the array of holiday movies she holds up, then says, "The Snowman. It's peaceful."

"Oo, good choice. I love this one."

They watch the movie in silence, sipping at their chocolate. And when Roxanne looks over to see if Megamind needs a refill yet—

—he's asleep. Curled up small with his cheek on the armrest and his jaw slack, deep shadows under his eyes, still hugging the throw pillow.

Oh.

Roxanne bites her lips together, gazing at him. Most people look some variety of peaceful when they're asleep, but Megamind just looks exhausted. For a moment, she imagines going and taking his hand and tugging him up, telling him to just come to bed with her. But that would be absurd. This is already way more than she was expecting from him.

She stands up and pulls her afghan off of her armchair and turns off the overhead light, leaving the tree lights to twinkle soft rainbows in the corner while Snowman's soundtrack sings quietly on the television. She can do this for him, at least.

He doesn't move at the knitted afghan, but Roxanne also takes her holiday throw blanket off the back of her couch. Megamind does stir as she drapes the heavier second blanket over him, eyelids dragging open and pupils flashing ethereal blue-green in the low light for a moment.

"Hmm? Oh." He blinks and starts to move like he's getting up, but Roxanne surprises herself by putting her hand on his blanket-covered arm and pushing him gently but firmly back down.

"Stay," she says, voice low. He turns his head a little, looks up at her with his expression still sleep-soft and confused, and her heart squeezes. "You stay, you're fine. Get some sleep. Just hit the power button on the remote to turn everything off when you're ready."

His heavy eyelids droop closed and he nods a little, stretches out his legs under the blankets, yawns his mouth too wide with a sound like a sweet little trill that turns into "Ohhhhkay" just before he goes boneless again.

She really has to fight the urge to pet her hand over the side of his head as she turns away to go upstairs. She very nearly gives in and just does it, but…again, that would be absurd, would push her luck too far, too quickly. Megamind is asleep in her home. That's enough.

For now, that will have to be enough.


Megamind had not planned on falling asleep on Roxanne's sofa, let alone staying overnight there; when he wakes around four in the morning it is with a crawling sense of creeping shame. The Snowman has looped who knows how many times; its music is back to Walking in the Air.

It's oddly appropriate. I'm holding very tight, I'm riding in the midnight blue—I'm finding I can fly so high above with you—

It feels like flying. Being with Roxanne. It really does. It's peaceful, he can rest. He doesn't have to second-guess himself with her and he doesn't know when that started or even why it happened! It feels dangerous. Feeling this safe with her, for no real reason beyond their extended association with each other and the fact that she's kind to him. It feels dangerous.

Roxanne knows more about him than any human alive (with the possible exception of his uncles, who don't count). And Megamind is okay with this! He wants to give her everything of him. Even after she frightened him with cagey questions barely a month ago.

"Minion I don't understand," he laments at Evil Lair, having stumbled off the bike already in the grip of a particularly bad Hanahaki attack. Three buds in a row, one after the other after the other, each of them blood-red and painfully round. "I don't understand! It feels like—it feels like falling off a building. And then we kidnap her and she's here, or I see her at her home, and suddenly I can fly? Catch myself and ride the wind? What is with that?"

"I really couldn't say." Minion rubs a big hand up and down his back, sitting on the floor beside him with his feet together. "Not much of what you've described has made much sense to me, I'm afraid. No, it's okay—it's all right, babies, he's okay—"

Megamind sighs and slumps, turns his focus to just getting his breath back while Minion tries to soothe the bots that have come to see what's wrong. Daddy is on the floor just inside the door and they're confused, they don't like it. One of them picks up one of the flower buds in a careful claw and barks at it.

"They're getting bigger," Minion observes, quiet. "It'll be flowers soon."

Megamind nods.

"Have you…given any thought to looking for a cure, Sir?"

He sighs, rubs his eyes. "I've thought about it. I don't…I don't want one."

"Why? Sir, you're miserable like this! You—"

"I'm not," he says sharply. "I am not miserable. I'm—maybe I was miserable, and physically I am in a lot of pain, yes, but—it's worth it! It is worth it."

"I have to wash blood out of your undersuits every day," Minion argues. "Your gills haven't fully stopped bleeding in months! Months! Are you even putting your ointment on them at all anymore?"

"My gills are fine, Minion."

"They're not! I don't understand how you can just—"

"That's because you don't love! You don't know what love feels like," he snaps, and then immediately regrets it when Minion's jaw clenches and his fins go rigid, his brow ridge peaking. But he swallows his regret and glares instead of apologizing, ire flaring. "Well you don't."

"Sir—"

"No!" he exclaims, wretched and hating everything and himself and Minion. "It is worth it and I don't care!"

"Fine," Minion hisses, getting to his feet. "I guess I'll just stop fucking trying, then."

Megamind sinks his teeth hard into his lip as his best friend and brother clanks away to keep the apology from tumbling out. He didn't mean it that way. Minion knows he didn't mean it that way. He shouldn't have to apologize. This is stupid. Minion is being stupid.

(Probably Megamind is also being stupid.)

(He. Is aware of this. Actually.)


Minion grinds his teeth, pacing his quarters and coiling his respiratory ganglia in agitation.

He didn't mean it like that, he tells himself. This shouldn't have pissed him off so badly. It's just. Every day. Every day, more blood. If Megamind would just give it up already and stop hiding it, maybe then Minion would feel a little less frantic! But Sir insists on using his gills to hide his illness and they keep drying and it hurts him! And he doesn't show it, doesn't mention it, but every day there is blood on his undersuit and his pajama shirt and sometimes even his sheets. It's horrendous.

And Minion is trying. He really is trying. But none of it makes any sense! He loves Roxanne, really he does—he does love, he does, he loves in his own way—but how is anyone worth this? Yes, Minion might bleed like this for Megamind if he needed to, but he and Megamind have an existing relationship that Minion knows and trusts! Roxanne is nice to them and seems to enjoy their company, but her relationship to Megamind is extremely one-sided! It exists only on Megamind's initiative! Roxanne has never sought him out, or Minion. She—

He pauses. Maybe that isn't fair. It's not like she could contact either of them even if she wanted to.

Yes she could, the angry, hurting part of him spits. She could, if she wanted to. She's smart, she almost certainly knows the brainbots are monitoring the bugs in her apartment. She could figure out Evil Lair's location if she really wanted.

That's not fair. That isn't—Minion doesn't know why she hasn't tried! He doesn't even know for sure that she hasn't. It isn't fair to reach for the cruel reason when Roxanne hasn't ever given him cause.

The door to his quarters clicks open and he looks up, anger flaring.

Megamind does actually look—not apologetic, he almost never looks apologetic. But a quieter kind of upset, at least. His head is tipped down and his elbows are slicked tight to his sides. "I didn't mean it that way," he says, subdued.

Minion opens his mouth to snap that he doesn't care how he meant it, he said what he said—but Megamind keeps going. "But you—have also been—having difficulties. With this. Watching this happen, helping me. I. Need to remember that."

Minion bares his teeth. "Sir. With respect. I might have handled that better under other circumstances, but it still would have hurt."

"But I didn't mean—"

"I know how you meant it!" Minion snaps. "I know! How you—how you think you meant it, how you want to have meant it! But no, Sir, I really do think you meant what you said! You meant I wouldn't understand!"

Megamind blinks.

"And that's not—that's not fair! I'm trying! I'm—I am trying to understand, I WANT to understand; I see you like this and I want—I want to know how to help, what to say! I wish I could!" He gulps, fins stiffening and pointing down with tears. "I see you and I wish, I wish I understood what you're going through, but I don't! You are in pain and I can't do SHIT about it and I hate that!

"And—and another thing—yes! I know I don't get it! I know I probably won't ever get it! I already know I don't understand and can't help! You don't have to rub it in!"

Megamind opens his mouth, but it takes him a moment to actually get words.

"I'm—oh. I didn't. Realize." He swallows hard. "Minion, I—do you—want me to go? I can—if you need space—"

"I do not need space," Minion snaps. "What I need is for you to know that I am fucking trying."

Megamind nods hard.

Minion studies him for a moment, then sighs, some of his indignant wounded anger ebbing. And...maybe it wasn't fair. To blow up at him this way. Megamind is also under a lot of stress; Minion understands that much, at least. "But I guess I can't blame you for being cranky," he allows.

And then he jumps, because Megamind has just darted forward and flung his arms around him. "Yes you can! You can and you should! I'm—okay maybe not just for being cranky, but—taking it out on you? Minion—I'm—I didn't—" He gulps. "I did mean—you wouldn't understand, and. I'm—sorry. But, but the words, I didn't mean to—I know, I know you love me. I know you love. I love you."

Minion softens a little. It was nice of him to say it first; Minion had been going to try, but it would have felt weird. "I love you, too."

Megamind squeezes him hard, click-knocking stress, distress in his chest.

"I want to rebind, Sir, if you're up for it," Minion says, after a moment. "It's been a while; I should check you for errors. Or will that be too hard on your gills?"

Megamind sighs and doesn't let go of him. "No. They could use the salt, anyway."


Minion doesn't say anything about the red on Megamind's sides when he strips down. He said all he needed to already, at least for now. He just follows his mind-twin down to depth and swims to meet him as Megamind tips his head forward.

This is always nice. Minion isn't one for physical contact under most circumstances, but this is different. He coils his primary ganglion into a spiral as he settles against the soft place where his friend's spine meets his skull, curls his secondaries around Megamind's throat to hold himself in place. One of their hands comes up and they net their fingers between Minion's dorsal ridges to hold their contact bulbs securely to the nuchal bonding structures of their brain stem, low on the back of their head.

They focus the usual way, already semi-linked and drifting. It's always been easy for them.

They don't fully merge. They've never tried that; it's theoretically possible but not a good idea. Disentangling from a link like that could be dangerous, and neither of them has had any training. Minion has his people's inherited memories, but that isn't the same thing.

This means Megamind is able to hold his pain away from Minion, keep it from searing into their smaller body, and Minion is able to scan their larger body for issues and errors in relative peace. There's a lump of tissue under their secondary gizzard that shouldn't be there; Minion signals the cells until they start to move to where Megamind will be able to pass them harmlessly out of his system later.

Other than that, he appears to be holding steady.

(The teeth of the seafloor evolved without sunlight, with radiosynthetic and chemosynthetic life at the base of their food chain. They developed the ability to consciously manipulate their own genome and expression and biology as needed in order to thrive in a radioactive environment. The teeth of the seafloor passed this flexibility onto the singers when the two species became entangled in the Binding, to give the singers what they would need for life in the water and take what the teeth of the seafloor would need for life at shallower depths than their ancestors could tolerate...but the singers never managed that level of control, possibly because so much of their bodies is so far away from their brains.)

(What this means is Minion holds his own body steady almost unconsciously, but Megamind can't do that. Sometimes his body gets confused and starts growing in ways it shouldn't. But no matter. Minion can fix it.)

Megamind drifts, the swirling lines and spots of his lymphatic vessels lighting and shimmering under his skin the way they only do when he syncs with Minion. He can feel both their heartbeats, both swim bladders. The oddly tingly sensation of Minion's gas exchange system. The glow in Minion's dorsal lines and under his own skin. It's nice.

All he needs is to not have a Hanahaki attack right now. He probably won't; that last one was bad enough to hopefully give him a few hours of peace.

Wellness, Minion sends him, after a couple minutes of checking their body over for errors. Wellness. Happy. You?

Happy, Megamind confirms. ContentmentHappy. Affection.

Good. Affection.

There's a whisper of worry under it, but Megamind ignores that. Minion is almost always worried about something.

We bind, he sends, because as much as he doesn't think he'll have an attack like this he also doesn't want to push his luck, and he feels Minion's pulse of agreement.

They focus on syncing their two hearts until the beats match and hold true for a few seconds, and then they disengage and drop the active link with a sort of mental sigh.

Alone in his body again, Megamind stretches as his skin goes dark.

"Was anything weird?" He's pretty sure he felt Minion change something, but he was preoccupied with his gills.

"A small error under one of your gizzards. But that's all. I think you might finally be past the worst of it." Megamind had lots of issues when he was younger and still growing; Minion had a heck of a time holding him steady.

"I hope so. Maybe you can stop worrying now."

Minion rolls his eyes and snaps at Megamind's ankle, then whips around and flees as Megamind whistles, "Oh you bastard! Worst fish! Get back here!" and chases him around and around the reef, laughing.


Across town, completely unaware of the underwater lightshow and good-natured game of tag, Roxanne sleeps better than she has in months. She doesn't wake up choking on petals until a little bit after five in the morning.

The blankets are folded on the end of her sofa and the tree is dark when she goes downstairs briefly to check. Megamind is gone.

That's fine. She wasn't expecting him to stay.

Snow is falling on her balcony, and has been for long enough that the dip where the hoverbike had been parked has two inches on it already. Hopefully Megamind made it home okay. At least he took the socks with him when he left.

"Merry Christmas, sweetheart," Roxanne murmurs, and draws a careful, breath-fogged heart on her balcony glass.

She turns her tree lights back on, and her television. She turns the volume down on The Snowman. And she curls up on her sofa under the blankets she laid over her supervillain, and closes her eyes, and she falls back to sleep wrapped up in the leather-almond smell of him.